goodbye christmas

it got cold enough to have a fire, so daddy built one

and mama  made the most amazing cheese ball ever. 

oh. and turkey. 

chris just said in reference to pearls strung on twine...

'i'm not sure if that's scriptural, anne...might be casting your pearls before twine....'

{..}oh...

our family. 

dawn's bone necklace for anne.  she says it's sanitary and for anyone who doesn't think so, to ask her about the cleaning process and she'd be glad to tell them all about it. 

anne liked it of course.  the only condition was that she had to wear it to school one day.

my brothers do have a way of expressing their approval or disapproval.

when i asked abe what he thought about my sweater he said,

'you know, i don't why people like that color.

looks like someone threw up lasagna on a yellow shirt.  why don't they just keep it one color

or the other - either yellow or orange???'

goodbye christmas until next year. 

you've been a good'n 

for sure.

shoe box and pixel

       found these pics from several years ago.
made me happy.

   

      claire, van gogh, the weepies and watermelon.

monday is for gingerbread men

today we made gingerbread cookies and sugar and refrigerator cookies.  i'd rather eat the dough.  who said to bake in the first place???  we put more strands of lights on our tree this year than we ever have and it looks so pretty at night.  we turn off all the other house lights just for fun, and look at the fire and lights.  lizer-beth's snowflake was missing from the tree and it was the first time.  liz, you'll have to make another. next year on this day it will be 12.12.12.  what will YOU be doing?  i was wondering that last year on 11.11.10 - 'what would i be doing 11.11.11???'  and do you know what that was?  i was at a wedding. and i forgot to look at the clock for 11.11 on 11.11.11.  {!}  a shame, i know.  i finished finals in grammar class with dawn today.  here, look. 'Around the rocks, the rugged rascal ran'. says i  passed, but wouldn't have if i hadn't pulled an all-nighter studying.  goodnight.  i'll leave you with a word from dawn:

   'Hey Gabe, you know in those books where a chicken is baking a cake and she says "Now for the eggs!" Aggh...Doesn't it disturb you at all? make you feel uncomfortable?  It's those details the author overlooks that can ruin a story.'

oh and check out anne's blog.  she finally made one

and i am very happy she did.  

you will be too.

heaven

      It's hard to think about eternity in some ways. It's just so BIG and whenever I concentrate hard and try to imagine what it will be like and get my mind around it, I never can.  That's no surprise, I guess, because we won't ever in this life wrap our minds around eternity.  Shoot, I don't even know if we'll be wrapping our minds around eternity in heaven. But sometimes heaven seems more real to me than others and the fact that one day when I die I'll go there - amazes me.  It hits me like someone broke the news to me for the first time. You know those things that have been hard to do - almost impossible at first - and very scary?  For me it was the first time Mama taught me to swim.  In the Olympic size pool at Oxford where scuba divers would blow bubbles 15 feet down and everything seemed  bigger than it does now {even now that place is huge} I was terrified.  I was so afraid that her arms wouldn't catch me if I went under and that I'd get water in my nose and that my toes wouldn't touch bottom.  But more than that, I remember feeling afraid of what I didn't know. I had never done it - what could happen?  What would hurt?  Would she help me?  Yes.  Then there was the tooth pulling.  Aghh...The boys were determined that the string to tooth, to door would work.  But it didn't because I always chickened out and bent over when the door would slam shut.  Mama would get a hot washcloth and I'd hold it in my mouth.  One night I went to where she was sitting on our old blue couch {i used to sit on that couch and cry whenever the moody steve green tape played}.  She said she would pull it for me but no no - I wouldn't hear of that.  So I kept whining and worrying over it until she said she would just 'look at it' and when she looked at it, a quick twist and jerk and burning and blood and babam! It was out.   I guess  I think about dying that way, almost.  It's that terrifying moment, only it will be a beautiful moment for us.  One that requires trust - more and more trust.
 I remember when Uncle Doug was sick, I was sitting on his hospital bed holding his hand and could  barely see him from wet eyes, but he was so calm.  He said 'Baby, I'm not afraid.  I'm ready to go if he wants me now.   I think of earlier this year when one of our friends was dying - A lady who would leave 11 kids behind and one of the most adoring husbands. She lay there holding onto life - by what???  sheer will, maybe? it was so weak - her breathing.  and labored.  the man would stroke her face and say 'It's o.k. beautiful, you can go...' It was so plain to me, there in that dark room, that she was standing on the edge of the river that every christian stands on before he crosses it.  The river must have seemed so big and deep and cold.   But a little exciting too, I think.  At that place the Christian is almost home.  He's finishing his course, crossing the finish line and entering something that is unfathomable to us.  Eternity.  What will he find on the other side of that dark, rushing water?  They say it's beautiful and a place where all sorrow is wiped away.  But will we lose who we are?   Will we remember once we cross it?  What will the shore of that place feel like?  Will the air smell differently and will my feet touch the bottom or will something try to grab me while I try to cross?  Will He say hello Himself and will I know who's who? Will everyone turn around and look at me like they do at church when I  walk in late?  Does everyone REaLLY have a harp?  and will I wear a tunic?  will there be grass or will it just be clouds?  Can I talk to everyone I've told myself  I would, or will people be singing throughout all eternity like they do at a sacred harp convention before lunch - nonstop?  Will there be trees?  Can I sit under one and think?  Will I need to think there?  What about waterfalls? Will there be waterfalls and can I look behind all of them?   It only makes sense to me that if earth, with all its beautiful places was just the work of his hands, and was made only for mortals, then a place that Jesus said He was preparing for and has spent all this time preparing for us - that it will be so far beyond what I call beautiful and what has been known to us as beautiful, that earth will seem shabby after seeing heaven.  And time?  Unmeasured time...Non - existent, time -  that will be the dream.  Heaven.  Amazing that it is ours.

T-give post.

Ok.  Here we are,  Thanksgiving post.  I haven't forgotten you.  

 Thanksgiving was twice.  Well, really three times, because Chris fixed a leftover Thanksgiving meal for me one day when I was at work.  We had dill pickles by a man named 'Dill Pickle' and we had greens that Peg Leg cooked herself - tasty, but Chris wasn't used to sugar being in his greens and there was dressing and cranberry etc. Anyhow, that was one Thanksgiving meal.  Chris made a super-yummy tea that day too.  So we listened to  'Sense and Sensibility' soundtrack and the sun kept getting in my eyes because it was a blue sky and gold and I was sitting by the window.  We had sprouts, too.  What an awful date food that would be.  We were laughing about how awkward it would be to make a girl sprouts and pressure her to eat them.  You feel absolutely like a grazing cow.  

   The two other Thanksgivings were both big and loud and fun and I wished wished wished it wouldn't go by so fast.   Mamaw and Papaw gave us Merry back after two weeks of quilting and sewing.  Papaw told us about Uncle Leonard, and Mamaw Mink and how he and Mamaw met. They told us too, about daddy when he was little.  They had pictures of him growing up and even though we've seen them before, we still get giddy when we see his old pictures.  Especially when he was in the Air Force.  Talk about handsome.  Oh boy.  No wonder he's good looking.  Every day in Arkansas we walked. Walked long roads beside cow fields and chicken houses and Brother Marvin's diesel truck. And every morning Mamaw would make a huge breakfast and everything from scratch except the hog.  We had homemade jellies and jams and biscuits.  I love their coffee too.  Papaw makes it just right.  We really didn't need a Thanksgiving meal after two mornings of that kind of cooking, but of course, we did. And we got to see family we hadn't seen in a year or longer and cousins that were new additions.  And then there was Memphis.  And it was awesome. The End

.

sunshiny things on this rainy day

i'm not going to write about thanksgiving right yet.  by the time i write it will be christmas season, probably.  but thanksgiving is a holiday that never gets old to me, so i won't mind writing it late.  there's too much to write.  so i'm going to give you the reader's digest edition and in the meantime post a few things that i found that are happy.

.

 {confess.  i sometimes buy the book

for the cover alone

and don't even know what it's about.

and yet, i'm fine 

because it has an amazing cover.}

i love turkey

  if i had three favorite ordinary sounds they would be 

water on rocks

fire on wood

daddy's voice
especially at night and on sundays becausehe speaks even deeper
and more rumbly then.

if i had three favorite ordinary smells they would be 

woodfires

sea air

leather

or three ordinary favorite things to do

laughing

dancing

watching

 but then there comes Thanksgiving.  and that is not ordinary. 

and there are so many things i love about it. but one of my favorite things about

 thanksgiving

is the noise...it's so mixed up...

cheers for football

bustling in the kitchen

laughter

little kids scooting under tables and tickling each other
preachers talking in their corner, sipping coffee 

shhing for the babies who need to sleep

...nathan's laugh. and joshua's and uncle zack's. they tickle me every time.

grandmama overseeing 

the door bell.  it's not a ding donger, but a buzz .  if you've ever been there

you know the sound.  it's specifically 

grandmama.

the door opening and closing - closing 

more slowly than it opens because of the air pressure pump thingy

at the bottom that makes a kind of sighing noise as it closes.

the squeaky silverware drawer

the bathroom door shutting and instead of twisting the lock

using the hook

daddy reading dr. seuss to the little girls in his lap

box fan in the yellow bedroom

penny barking

isaac teasing. :)

wahoo yelling, and groaning and chanting

thomas saying 'my darling' to hannah

seth trying to say my name 

and messing it up

again.

and then at night, with everyone packed into the living room

and spilling over into the kitchen and hall and den

singing. 

singing. 

singing.

full and beautifully and powerfully.

and that is why

three things just wouldn't do

for thanksgiving.

it was raining when i woke up yesterday morning and raining when i fell asleep last night. but during the day there would be bursts of bright sunshine, as if the day had forgotten it had rained at all and then it would cloud over all dark again and drizzle.  i had the little baby i am temporarily nannying for and needed to run some errands.  i have to say, i had no idea just how much work mothering is --even temporarily--.  (of course, mama went up in my estimation...nine of us.   NINE!!!) from the moment i got up, i was thinking about just how i was going to manage with this baby in town.  take the car seat in the store?  leave it out.  go to the bank?  drivethru. what about in the other bank?  i have to deposit the check...   sign it before leaving.  alright.  so i go to town and my knuckles are white on the wheel.  it was the first time i'd driven a baby and  i was sure some meteor or goblin or drunk would slam into the car or run out in front of us or that there would be a car chase, firing guns and sirens.  none of it.  i was shocked. when i took the baby into the bank, i then saw another formidable obstacle: the deposit slip.  ahhhhhhrg!  i forgot that.  so i hoist her from one hip to the other trying to balance pen, baby, deposit slip, keys and wallet.  the guy that works there came up and said ' you want me to hold her while you do that?'  i almost burst out laughing.  yes.  thank you goatee'd man with a purple shirt.  you certainly can.  now the question is, how many people in stores will i need to hire to do that from now on?
  i'm determined one of these days to have a moon watching party.  i wanted to do it so badly last full moon but i imagined it all up in my head and so now, it just needs to happen.  we'll go to an open field, take blankets, thermoses of tea (a super yummy indian tea that chris makes a splendid brew of) and ourselves.  nothing but us and goodness and the galaxies.  then we'll talk.  talk for a long long time about so many things it will be impossible to trace how one thing led to another and how we could get from one topic all the way over to this other one.  but it won't matter.  everybody dotted on their blankets will be cozy and have red noses and who knows what the sky will look like.  that will be for us to find out!
   chris and i stayed after the folks left from church last night.  the church parking lot is grassy and the ground was wet and soft.  the trees around our church are wild at night, especially,  and even more so in the winter, because of their bare arms.  they seem to reach out and weave their gnarled fingers into inky blackness. there was just enough light to make out the lines of the branches and some of the ground.  we stood talking.  he reminds me of mr. knightly.  so honest, and yet, gentle. reproving, but very kind.  and while we stood there, verbally patching up holes in our garments of good and better thinking, we saw an owl.  he flew up in a branch of the cedar tree and looked at us and the ground and the dark woods.  it drizzled, and chris said some words that have made me think and that i wrote down in my book.  the owl flew off, dipping low to the ground and swooping until he faded into black.  the air smelled spicy and warm and sweet.  i love the smell of rain.   but today was brilliant. all sunshine and so chilly. 

p.s. one of my all time favorite actor/actress combinations.  they feel like home when they act.

and she is lovely.

 

rainy wednesday

  Mama has been an excellent cook for as long as I can remember and all her food tastes good, even if i don't like it.  She knows how to stir up food for anybody. and we're not talking boxed lasagna or frozen dinners.  No ma'am.  My mama makes it from scratch and positively blushed and gave herself a stern talking to when she bought a cookie cake from kroger's bakery for daddy's birthday, (this was a small  after party. let it be known, she prepared steaks and baked apples --which was his special request -- for his actual birthday).  Mama knows how to cook ANYTHING and one time on a Saturday she found out THE WHOLE CHURCH  was coming to lunch the next day.  Didn't phase her.  She just got to work peeling potatoes and carrots, scampering around the pantry, digging in freezers and we fed our church next day.  Ok ok.  You get  the point. My Mama is impressively resourceful, awesome  and is an amazing cook.
So.... you'd think I'd have no problem picking up her trail -- right???  haaa!! wrong.   I totally thought that cooking super tasty meals for a ton of people would be a breeze....not really.  See, I always suspected this particular fear.  Could see it looming from time to time and I'd give it a sideways glance -- edgy.  I would rather pretend it wasn't there and that when I had to cook for whoever - BOOM!  The ease and instinctive knowledge of how to bring it all together would attach itself to me.  But alas! I wasn't born with that super - power and i realized it after an apparition I had while conversing with my friend Lizer.  She was telling me about her in-laws coming and how she cooked a meal for them and it was very good - I'm sure.  But then I had an unshakable mental image of my completely freezing at that point.  I could imagine my husband coming in and saying ' Oh btw, darling, the ole Parental Units are coming tomorrow for dinner, so why don't you be a good hag and fix something especially delish?'  He'd walk out (just as most husbands who've given a happy command would) and I'd stare wide-eyed at this. Blank.  'What should I fix?'   I can see me greeting my in-laws and presenting them with broiled hot dogs and fried bologna with heaps of white potatoes drizzled with catchup, and having the faintest inkling that I should, perhaps, have served something different?  but, not being sure of that.  Well, I'm determined to shave off the percentage of that happening.  Hence, the beginning of a true blue cookbook.  I have three recipes in it already, one of which I'll give you.  It's positively scrumptious and caramel is much easier to make than I had suspected.  So here, brew some coffee or tea, try some yummy applespice cake! and have yourself a good day, especially if it's a rainy one.

 

Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. 

O Lord, open thou my lips; 

and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.

 For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it:

thou delightest not in burnt offering.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: 

a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.